By Livinus Nnebedum
The increasing rate of social-ill among Nigerian Youths have been an issue of concern to Government, Security Agencies and well meaning Nigerians. Training of Children entails socialization and Education.
Education is a process of influencing the young and inexperienced so that they become worthy human beings. Socialization is the process by which young people acquire the already existing culture of the groups with which they are associated. It is the process by which a new member goes through understanding the community’s needs, practices and patterns of behaviours and subsequently adapt to them. A child learns how to do things like his people through socialization.
Agents of socialization are;
Home and family:- parents and guardians, father, mother, brothers, sisters, and relatives.
Schools:- Teachers, Head of Institutions, students.
Peer groups:- good colleagues, companies etc.
Mass media:- print media (Newspapers, Magazines) Books, Novels, Bible, Koran, Comics etc Electronic or Non-print Media e.g. Radio, TV, Cinema etc.
Religious Institutions:- Churches, Mosques, Priests, Bishops, Rev. Cannons, Pastors, Prophets, Pope, Members of the Religious Institution.
Clubs:- Social gathering etc.
Education and socialization are necessary ingredients for training of children. Parents take the lead in training children to develop the different types of acceptable behaviour in any society. Discipline, moral and academic training are the primary responsibility of the parents.
The family as an agent of training provides the first educational experiences of the children. These experiences begin in the infancy with the first attempt to direct, guide and train the child. For the child to get those good expectations of the family, there has to be that constant and regular interaction between the child and the biological parents. Parents therefore, take the lead in training children to develop different types of acceptable behaviours in the society.
However, as school is the first step away from the family into the outside world, teachers play the role of parents in training the children. All the schools in Nigeria, public or private, at all levels must inculcate moral and discipline in their pupils and students. When this is done, Nigerian youths would have been equipped to be useful to the society and help work towards building a peaceful and progressive Nation.
All religious bodies in Nigeria should continue to include moral instructions in their teaching with a view to moulding good character in youths. As Nigeria is now battling with multiple problems of insurgency, political upheaval and indiscipline, thuggery, rapping, kidnapping and other numerous social ills, moral and religious instruction should be a core subject in schools. Adequate control measures against cultism must be adopted in all schools.
The government, school authority, parents and security agencies should work as a team to ensure eradication of secret cult in the school system. Various religious bodies in course of their teaching should emphasize responsibilities and those ideals that will help the child modify his behaviour and fashion out acceptable good character.
Building of schools, payment of teachers’ salaries and provision of security in schools against secret cult should be the primary responsibility of the government.
It is necessary that the government and various religious bodies should introduce moral and religious instructions as core subject in all nursery, primary and secondary schools across the country and make it a compulsory subject. This will help to ensure discipline and bring about good moral behaviour among youths and future generations. At this junction, it is the duty of the government and the various religious bodies to introduce this and ensure its proper implementations.
The early missionaries that came to Nigeria, brought along with them Education and Religion. Moral instructions and discipline were invoked at that period. There is need to establish Reformatory Institutions in all the 774 LGA’s in Nigeria for training and re-training of never-do-wells, school dropouts, repented armed robbers, bad boys and girls etc. The various Religious denominations should be established within the premises of those reformatory schools to help in the moral up-bringing of those characters for better.
Therefore, the team work of the parents in various families, teachers in various institutions, different religious bodies, mass media and government are all urgently needed to train youths to become worthy and useful citizens for a better society.
Livinus Nnebedum is a Public Affairs Analyst and Former Director in Anambra State Agricultural Development Programme (ADP).
He writes from Umunze